


And We Shall Stand in the Sun

by felinefelicitations



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Death, Ficlet, M/M, Sunrises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26968693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinefelicitations/pseuds/felinefelicitations
Summary: Thanatos does not make an effort to hide the toll that announces his arrival, but Zagreus does not turn his head, his eyes fixed to the horizon.“Watch with me?”Thanatos hates sunrises. They hurt his eyes, slide a slow itch across his skin like the pink rash spreading up the clouds and sky. Only noon matches for its ability to remind him how much he does not belong here on the surface.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 292





	And We Shall Stand in the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this comic](https://twitter.com/MittieArt/status/1314719105522511878?s=20). I am very very soft for Thanatos and Zagreus. Title from ["Defeat" by Kahlil Gibran](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58713/defeat-56d23d566b4c3), which gives me quite a lot of feelings when I think of Zagreus and just happens to have a line about sunrises in it.

The night is starting to fade.

On its own, it means nothing; Death waits for no one, and the turning of day and night has little bearing on when mortal souls require collecting.

And yet, when he can, Thanatos prefers the dim halls of the House to the light of the sun here. He considers what needs doing--for there is always work that needs doing--but there is not another soul he needs guide for a time. Long enough that he instead turns his thoughts to a different sort of brilliance than that slowly warming the horizon.

 _Oh_.

Zagreus is close, so much closer than when Thanatos usually looks for his fiery soul, closer even than when Zagreus’ calls for his aid. The Temple of Styx, perhaps? No, closer... _there_.

He blinks.

In the House of Hades, Zagreus blazes hotter and brighter than any other soul, brighter even than souls just arrived from bodies not yet cold. In the House, he burns, all of him--his footsteps, the thin skin of his ankles, at his joints, his eyes, all of that fire rising up through him to burn through the crown of laurels on his head and spark up, up, away. In Asphodel, Thanatos can barely find him at all. Here, though...

...here, Zagreus grows dim.

Thanatos does not make an effort to hide the toll that announces his arrival, but Zagreus does not turn his head, his eyes fixed to the horizon.

“Watch with me?” 

Thanatos hates sunrises. They hurt his eyes, slide a slow itch across his skin like the pink rash spreading up the clouds and sky. Only noon matches for its ability to remind him how much he does not belong here on the surface.

He sits next to Zagreus’ right and lets a leg dangle off the edge of the cliff. 

It is quiet, now. He listens to the waves crashing against the cliff face beneath, the first scattered bird song, Zagreus’ slow and ever slowing breathing. Every now and then, the waves crash hard enough surf sprays up against their bare feet and where Thanatos would expect the hiss and sputter of steam, Zagreus’ breath stutters and his soul recoils.

“Are you going to your mother’s cottage?” Thanatos asks.

“Not today.”

 _Too tired_.

Zagreus leans and rests his head against Thanatos’ shoulder. The weight is familiar; the lack of heat less so. Thanatos has never met Zagreus on the surface, has never seen what he meant exactly by _I can’t stay up there, Than_. Here, shrouded in the darkness Nyx uses to keep the entrance to the underworld safe, there is no one to see them; he reaches and twines their hands together. 

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the whole thing,” Zagreus says. His eyes are closed now, voice so soft the sea wind nearly snatches it away. “One day.”

“One day,” Thanatos promises. He strokes his thumb over Zagreus’ pulse. Listens to it flicker, stutter. Stop.

If Thanatos’ did not have his hands on him here, Zagreus would dissolve into blood, drain to the river Styx, come back again at home. But Thanatos is here, and he deals with the dead, and so he keeps Zagreus’ soul trapped in his body a little longer. 

His eyes ache and his skin itches, but he watches the rest of the sunrise, Zagreus leaning against him. It’s so little time, but Zagreus’ soul is restless and impatient and _cold_ ; he wants so desperately to go home. Thanatos has held souls far more slippery than this without the benefit of a body to contain them; he waits for the sun to finish rising and watches what, for now, Zagreus cannot himself.

Eventually, the sun clears the horizon, casts the sky a clear and cold blue. Thanatos stands, careful not to send either of them off the cliff, and scoops Zagreus’ body into his arms. 

“Let’s go home, Zag,” he says, and blinks.


End file.
